120 Years of Electronic Music
Casio Synthesisers 1982-1992
Casio, the Japanese consumer electronics company, was in the professional synthesizer business until 1992. All of their synthesizers were digital, and involved menu driven programming interfaces. The CZ line used what they called 'Phase Distortion Synthesis'. The VZ line used 'Interactive Phase Distortion' and the FZ line were 16 bit sampling units. The CZ line was among the first commercially available MIDI keyboards.
The Casio Synthesiser and Sampler range 1982-1992.
Casio CZ-101
The Casio CZ101 Digital Synthesiser
Casio's entry level portable synthesiser. 49 key mini-keyboard, 16 ROM patches, 16 RAM Patches. Polyphonic, non-velocity sensitive, multi-timbral(4part) "Phase Distortion" synthesiser.mono output, cartridge and cassette interface
The Casio CZ1000 Digital PD Synthesiser
CZ-1000
a CZ-101 with full size keys.
The Casio CZ5000 digital synthesiser
CZ-5000
Two CZ-101s with full size keys and an onboard real-time & simple step-edit sequencer.mono output, built in chorus and a cassette interface
CZ-3000
The CZ-3000 is the CZ-5000 minus the sequencer.
CZ-1
Full size a 5-octave, 61 Key keyboard. Named patches, 64 ROM/RAM. Velocity
+Aftertouch. 8 note poly/multitimbral.
FZ-1
full size digital sampling keyboard. 16 bit/30k sampling (up to
2 megabytes).oversized 64x96 backlit LCD with menu-driven OS, visual
editing of waveforms, up to 64 split points per patch (8 patches
loaded simultaneously), 3.5" HD floppy (optional SCSI interface), 8
individual outputs (plus mix output), 16-way multitimbral (but only 8
notes polyphonic).
The Casio FZ10m sampling module
FZ-10M
Rack modules FZ-1. 8 individual outs, 2 Mbytes standard memory.
The inputs/outputs are balanced(XLR) AND unbalanced(1/4" phone jack)
It had some OS enhancements over the FZ1 and could perform additive synthesis (48 harmonics), and also had some basic waveforms (sawtooth etc).
FZ-20M
FZ-10M + a SCSI Hard disk interface. Rare and highly coveted.
VZ-1
Full size programmable (interactive Phase Distortion) keyboard (61 Key) Velocity & aftertouch. 16 note polyphony. 8 oscillators per note (128 oscillators total).The VZ-1 is multitimbral, although it doesn't have dynamic note allocation. You can get it respond to up to 8 MIDI channels at once in multimode. No sequencer.
VZ-8M
8 note polyphony expander module for VZ-1/10m. Provisions for Guitar and Wind synth usage. Lacks graphical envelope editor.
VZ-10M
16 voice rackmounted VZ module.
SZ1 multitrack Sequencer
The SZ1 was a 4 track real time/step MIDI sequencer, 3600 note memory with a data cartridge or cassette interface.
SK-1
Toy keyboard with a two second sample memory and a small embedded
microphone.It is to some extent programmable, but it has no way to save patches.
SK-5
A SK-1 follow on. 4 sample memorys.
DH-100
Digital Horn. A MIDI wind controller. 6 preset tones that you can
play through the handy built in speaker. silver colour.
DH-200
DH-100 in black.
RZ-1
Sampling Drum Machine. .8 seconds of sample memory, that can be split
1, 2, or 4 ways. Easy programmability.
CTK-1000 & CTK-770
These are the currently produced MIDI consumer keyboards. They have
built in sounds, with some sort of sound editor, a limited effect
section, and MIDI.
The Casio VL-1 Tone
The VL-Tone was a budget keyboard 'toy' that Looked like a hybrid of a calculator and a keyboard. Despite or maybe because of the instruments indeterminate character it became something of a cult instrument. The VL-tone was 12 inches long and 2 inches wide with a 2.5 octave 'button' keyboard. The VL-tone allowed editing of 9 preset sounds via a simple (ADSR) envelop shaper and modulation via vibrato and/or tremolo. The VLtone had a simple rhythm box and a 100-110 note real time sequencer.
Sources:
FZ-Dump Homepage:FZ-Dump software for MSDOS supporting SoundBlaster Midi, and if you have the FZ->PC adapter cable, high speed parallel port sample transfer. Source code available.
Soundlib Librarian: Windows patch lib for over 17 synths including Casio CZ . Also has some
© 120 Years Of Electronic Music 2005
